Explanation of HSC Marks (Moderating)

[Ragerunner]

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(NB: We've developed a prototype which simulates the moderation of assessment marks - www.boredofstudies.org/moderate.php)


Explanatory document from the Board of Studies: http://users.on.net/unix/HSCmarks.pdf

This answers a LOT of questions to do with moderation of assessment marks. refer to the link for the more indepth answer

Below is some information describing what happens to the School Assessment marks that are sent in to the Office of the Board of Studies.


For every HSC course you are studying, an Assessment mark, along with an Exam mark and an HSC mark will appear on a course report. This assessment mark is not the raw assessment mark that your school has sent to the Board of Studies, but first goes through a process of change, called moderation. The marks are moderated because, some teachers set harder assessment tasks or are more strict with marking than other teachers.

Below is the working for two small-sized hypothetical schools:

School A:
Raw School Assessment marks		Exam marks
(sent in to Board of Studies)		(on the external exam)
Tim	94	Fred	86
Fred	90	Tim	82
Joe	60	Joe	70
(average: 81.3)		(average: 79.3)

Now, we moderate the raw School Assessment marks (while students keep their own Exam marks). We need to retain the rank order of students according to the School Assessment, but need to make sure the marks are high enough (or low enough) to be in line with the group performance on the Exam. Tim gets the highest Exam mark as his moderated Assessment mark, Joe gets the lowest Exam mark as his moderated Assessment mark, and Fred receives a mark that ensures that the average of the two groups of marks are the same, and so in this case receives the middle Exam mark as his moderated Assessment mark.

Assessment marks		Exam marks
(moderated)		(no change)
Tim	86	Fred	86
Fred	82	Tim	82
Joe	70	Joe	70
(average: 79.3)		(average: 79.3)

Then the third mark reported on the course report, the HSC mark, is calculated by averaging the Assessment mark and the Exam mark:

HSC mark
(average of Assessment and Exam)
Tim	84
Fred	84
Joe	70

Now here is a different example, in which the student who comes first only receives a mark of 60/100, as in your example:

School B:
Raw School Assessment marks		Exam marks
(sent in to Board of Studies)		(on the external exam)
Anne	60	Ben	86
Ben	56	Anne	82
Chris	26	Chris	70
(average: 47.3)		(average: 79.3)

In School B the raw school assessments are much lower than School A, but the Exam marks are consistent between schools. The raw School Assessment marks are moderated in the same fashion:

Assessment marks		Exam marks
(moderated)		(no change)
Anne	86	Ben	86
Ben	82	Anne	82
Chris	70	Chris	70
(average: 79.3)		(average: 79.3)

HSC mark
(average of Assessment and Exam)
Anne	84
Ben	84
Chris	70

The School Assessment marks were originally much harsher (lower) for students in School B than School A, but the performance in the Exam suggests that both groups are similar in ability. While School A's School Assessment average was slightly higher than expected given their exam performance, School B's School Assessment average was much lower than expected (it was 47.3, rather than 79.3). Therefore moderation for School A brought the assessment marks downward slightly, while moderation for School B brought the assessment marks upwards a large amount. The end result is School A and School B students receiving consistent HSC marks.

We want students to work equally hard both during the year for assessments and for the HSC exams itself, so they are worth equal amounts. Because Fred (and Ben) ended up with the best performance on the exam in their respective school groups, they should be rewarded for that by retaining their own high Exam mark, but because Tim (and Anne) had the best assessment performances in their school groups, they should be rewarded by having the highest Assessment mark in the school group (which is made equal to the highest Exam mark for the school). Therefore, in this simple case Tim and Fred end up with exactly the same HSC mark, as did Anne and Ben.

In School A, Joe, although always coming last ends up with 70, rather than 60, because this is how he performed in the external Exam - his School Assessment mark seems to be a little harsh, so is brought up in line with the lowest Exam performance (which happens to be his own). Likewise in School B, Chris always comes last, but ends up with 70, rather than the 26 suggested by the teacher, given his exam performance.

These examples I have given are of pretty simple cases, and when more students are in a class and/or when a student performs very poorly in comparison with their Assessment ranking, other rules can come in to play, so students are not disadvantaged by the process. However, the examples should give you a good understanding of how moderation generally works and why it is used.

In summary, both the School Assessment rankings for a group of students and how these marks are distributed are important. So if you want to have the highest Assessment mark in the class you need to be ranked first in the group in the School Assessment. However, if you come second in the School Assessment but someone beats you by only one mark and the next student is a lot lower, you and the student who just beat you will end up with similarly high marks, and the next student will receive a mark that is quite a bit lower. If you do receive a low ranking in your class for a particular course, but end up beating most of your classmates in the exam, you will end up with a rather higher reported Exam mark than Assessment mark, and your HSC mark for the course will be half way between the two.

Therefore, work as hard as you can both during the school year and in preparation for the external exam itself. In addition, if you think your teacher is giving very hard tasks and marking them harshly in comparison to another school, this will not have an effect on the reported HSC marks, because the process of moderation is used; only the relative rankings and distributions
within each group is important.


Flowchart - Basic Process of the HSC System
While procrastinating i've made a little flowchart for the basic process of the HSC system. Let me know if anything is wrong...

[Minai]

This is very similar to Lazarus' document on alignment etc
I dunno if it is actually his or not.

But yeah - ppl should read this THEN ask questions.

[Lazarus]

Originally posted by Minai
This is very similar to Lazarus' document on alignment etc
I dunno if it is actually his or not.

Ahh, this is the original document from which I obtained my information! The copy at my local library was stolen, and so I never finished my version.

It all looks good to me - I think the use of the ISM/EM/TWM abbreviations only confuses things, but it's all correct, at least. Out of curiosity, where did you get it?

Thanks for posting it, Ragerunner!

[~TeLEpAtHeTiC~]

ok..i was sumwhat confident before.. but now i am a little hazed again.
from what i can gather (although i am probably wrong as usual) performace is also dependant on how well (or crap for that matter) your school performs..
well what happens if in ur classes ur first .. and there is a huge gap between u and the rest of ur class.. BUT your the only one with such a high mark (80-90)... meanwhile everyone else in your class are around the same low mark (30-40)... if your schools marks get averaged...does that mean my marks gets pulled down... i've read somewhere that becuase i am first, i am relatively immune..
however..how is this possible if the rest of the class is going bad.. will thats not pull me down considerably..or will they be pulled up?...
i'm blabbering on again and knowing me..the answer is simple and has been mentioned before..
however my paranoia is getting the betta of me at this point
what to do what to do..
help plz..
thanx in advance guys....

[Ragerunner]

i was still curious about moderation of assessments so i decided to email the board of studies.

i asked several questions and with the fantastic help from them they actually gave me this document and with a manually typed up explanation of the document answering all the questions i asked such as what happens if you do bad in assessments but excellent in the exam, and how your school affects your UAI.

im surprised with their excellent service

[Ragerunner]

if the majority of your school did bad in that particular exam it will be scaled up. so no need to worry whether an exam was too hard.

[Lazarus]

Originally posted by equinoxinc
i've read somewhere that becuase i am first, i am relatively immune..
however..how is this possible if the rest of the class is going bad.. will thats not pull me down considerably..or will they be pulled up?...

Not 'relatively' immune; completely immune. If anything, they will be pulled up - you will not be adversely affected.

Originally posted by Ragerunner
if the majority of your school did bad in that particular exam it will be scaled up. so no need to worry whether an exam was too hard.

Even with everything that's been posted lately, I have no idea where this comment (or the logic behind it) came from...

Originally posted by Ragerunner
i was still curious about moderation of assessments so i decided to email the board of studies... they actually gave me this document

Incredible! I've never heard of such a thing. It is unfortunate that the UAC is less forthcoming.

[Ragerunner]

hehe

thanks for re-arranging my post

after it got posted i looked at it and thought omg that looks ugly. Words all over the place and the table wasn't lined up. not there was a table in the first place :P

but i didn't know how to fix it up :P

[enak]

Ive read the document, so basically, if you do bad in internal school assessments, where your rank is low in comparison to the grade (bottom half) and you do well in the HSC exams, say top 10%, the external mark you recieved basically gets written off because of your poor internal performance?

Is this right, do I have to worry?

[Lazarus]

The idea is that the best marks will be awarded to the students who perform well consistently throughout the year and then again in the HSC exams.

[Ragerunner]

but remember the trials are still yet to come.

If you put all your effort into the subject you did bad in and improve your ranking a lot then its quite easy to recover.

trials are about 45% of your internal assessment meaning everything you have done up to now is approximately worth that one exam!

but you are going to need to move your ranking up a lot of ur near the bottom in order to get the best marks

[enak]

Bleh, this is confusing, i think ill just study and not worry about it

[Ragerunner]

i know :/

[chocolate fairy]

being blunt about this. i admit that yes regardless of being in a selective school i am doing shit and that yes i'm hoping to get a ride on the scalling bandwagon of my fellow pupils. but that doesn't mean that i won't bother trying though...

[flyin']

Ah, the selective bandwagon is great especially if your above average a fair bit ... and expect to crash in the Exam room!